The Huey Long Murder Case

by Hermann B. Deutsch

Miss Grace (she did not become Mrs. Dent until a year later) had attended Louisiana State University with both Clarence and Cecil Lorio, and knew how close the former’s friendship with Senator Long was. She began at once to call him, but he was not at his farm in nearby Pointe Coupee parish, and the telephone at his Baton Rouge residence was apparently out of order. So she called his brother, Dr. Cecil Lorio.

“Suppose you let me tell the whole story, exactly as I recall it,” the latter began, when asked about his recollections of what took place in the operating room of Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium when Huey Long was admitted there as a patient that September night. Dr. Cecil Lorio and Dr. Walter Cook were, at the time of this inquiry, the only surviving physicians who were present throughout all the ensuing surgical procedure.

“When she failed to reach my brother Clarence,” Dr. Lorio continued, “Lucille May Grace called me at my home, and I left at once for Our Lady of the Lake Sanitarium. Huey’s clothing had been removed by the time I got there, and he was in bed in his room at the east end of the third-floor corridor. He was fully conscious and we talked quietly from time to time during the next hour. He was particularly distressed by the thought that he might now be unable to carry out his plan to screen students for L.S.U., so as to make it possible for all exceptionally bright high-school graduates, however needy their families, to receive the advantages of college education.

“I took his blood pressure and pulse every fifteen minutes; he had evidently learned something about the significance of this, for when he asked me what the readings were, and I told him his pulse rate was getting faster and his blood pressure was dropping a bit, he said: ‘That’s not good, is it?’ and I answered him by saying: ‘No, but it isn’t too bad yet, either.’ ‘It means there’s an internal hemorrhage?’ he then asked. I said he was probably hemorrhaging some, but that the relation between blood pressure and pulse rate was one that could also be attributed to shock. He was very curious about who had shot him, saying it was someone he had never seen before.

“He had visibly a small blue puncture on the right side of his abdomen, and another on the right side of his back where the bullet emerged. Both were very small. But it was obvious some emergency surgery would have to be performed sooner or later. I was told that Dr. Sanderson had been summoned from Shreveport, and that Drs. Urban Maes and James Rives were already en route from New Orleans. Dr. Maes had been appointed to the chair of surgery at L.S.U.’s new medical college, of which Dr. Vidrine, also present in Baton Rouge at the time, was dean, along with his position as superintendent of Charity Hospital. He was in general charge of the patient’s case. At some point in the proceedings word was brought to us that a motoring accident had forced Dr. Rives’s car off the road, and that they would be delayed some time by the difficulty of securing service at that time of night to have their car dragged back to the highway. When informed of this, Dr. Vidrine decided not to wait any longer.”

Huey’s very close friends, Seymour Weiss and Conservation Commissioner Robert Maestri, had reached Baton Rouge some time prior to this. It is Mr. Weiss’s clear recollection that the decision to wait no longer before performing an emergency operation was reached “by all of us” before word was received of the mischance encountered by Drs. Maes and Rives.

“As I recall the circumstances,” Seymour Weiss says, “Huey’s condition was getting worse by the minute. Dr. Vidrine insisted that any further delay was progressively lessening the Senator’s chances. The other physicians present agreed that the outlook was not hopeful. Vidrine was the physician in charge and the rest of us were laymen. The time came when we either had to agree to let the operation be performed at once, or take upon ourselves the risk of endangering the man’s life. Mrs. Long and the children had not yet reached Baton Rouge, but in view of the medical opinions, the rest of us—all being individuals who were close to Huey—were just about unanimous in agreeing that the doctors should proceed.”

Amid the almost inconceivable confusion in and out of the hospital, one person seems to have kept her head, and that was Miss Mary Ann Woods, now Mrs. Arthur Champagne, the supervisor of nurses. Assigning floor nurses and trainees to duties so as to make the best possible disposition of available personnel, she set out to provide four special attendants for the critically injured Senator, two to serve at night and two by day.

The first one she called from the register was Theoda Carriere, who responded at once, even though she had just come off a twelve-hour tour of duty. The other three were Loretta Meade, Helen Selassie, and Mrs. Hamilton Baudin. Miss Carriere was one of the first to reach the hospital, as she lived nearby; and since by that time Senator Long had been taken from his third-floor sickroom to the operating theater on the floor above, she scrubbed up at once and reported for duty there.

According to her recollection, Dr. Cook was working on the patient, who was anesthetized by the time she arrived. Being short of stature, she had difficulty in seeing the operating table, and therefore placed a stool so that, by standing on it, she could look over the shoulders of those surrounding the patient.